In the summer of 2006, Alexandrian artist Mahmoud Khaled spent one month as a participant in the residency program at the Montalvo Art Center, a non-profit organization located in the scenic Saratoga Hills in Northern California. The center is housed in Montalvo Villa, a 1912 Mediterranean-style building named after Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo, the Spanish writer who gave California its name. Today, Montalvo Villa is a prime location for posh California weddings. Certain areas of the villa and its adjacent verandas are regularly rented out for use as a venue in which corporate events and, more specifically, wedding receptions are hosted. And it was this unlikely function of Montalvo Villa, and the significance given to such an ‘ordinary’ occasion, that struck a chord that echoed in the quietude engulfing Khaled’s residency, prompting him to commence working on his series, Re/Arranged Marriage.
